Catalog and online buyers collect lots and lots of boxes and packaging. Just take a look at the “box closet” at our house; we seem to collect Amazon boxes as fast as we collect coat hangers!

So what do you do with them? Flatten them and put them in the recycling bin most likely.

Columbia Sportswear is trying a new twist on the theme: A Box Life. Online customers can choose to receive their purchases in used boxes. Then they can use the QR code on the box to track where the carton has been.

Why not start a business that collects used boxes, sorts and flattens them, codes them, and then offers them at considerable discount to online retailers? Sounds like a “green” business to  me!

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